[walrus01]

Never buy any inkjet printer. I threw in the garbage a Canon multifunction that refused ton work as a SCANNER when its ink was empty.

If you have the space and print a lot of black and white, buy an eight year old used HP LaserJet with an Ethernet interface.

[manyxcxi]

I don't know why people still bother with inkjets. It's like the companies are actively punishing you for buying these models of printers. If they are necessary for work, then MAYBE. But even then, if you're buying commercial hardware you're not dealing with this junk either.

It also used to be that laser was incredibly expensive in comparison, now they're about the same price if you compare color inkjet to black and white laser.

I bought a Brother black and white laser MFC 7 years ago. I've changed the toner three times and it is just ready to print when I am. I've never had it not print, my old inkjet required a prayer before every print job.

No nozzle jams, no problems with a color being used up, preventing a b+w print. It just works. I paid maybe $180 for the printer 7 years ago and I'm not going to replace this printer until it fully dies. It has fax and multi page scanning capabilities- the only thing that sucks is that it isn't networked by default and the Linux drivers are touchy.

I plugged it in to my TP-Link Archer C7 and their printer sharing drivers work fantastic on OS X. I will never buy another inkjet printer again.

[rileyteige]

Nozzle jams were the bane of my existence with the 3 HP inkjets I inherited/bought during my college years.

I also switched to a Brother B/W laser printer last year (HL-L2380DW) and it works over my network, I can print to it from a phone/tablet/desktop (win/OSX/linux/iOS/android), and on each platform it "just works", printer/scanner/copier.

We have printed hundreds of pages thus far and have yet to replace the cartridge that came with it when we bought it. No streaking, no alignment issues, no clogging, and it even has double-sided print support. ~$200 investment, and have never had a better printing experience.

EDIT: I should highlight that the reason i ended up with 3 HP printers was because the average lifespan of each came out to ~1.5 years. Inherited 2 used, bought the last one new, and when that one also died so quickly is when we made the switch to laserjet.

[unclebucknasty]

My last HP multifunction was complete garbage. The sheet feeder was unreliable. The scanner insisted on adding a black vertical line about 2 inches from the left margin of every scanned page. Scans resulted in massive file sizes even though quality was sub-par.

Print quality was fair, but cartridges went dry super fast. Frequently replaced cartridges for drying vs usage. Software was also sub-par. Network printing wasn't exactly reliable, as the printer would go unreachable.

Switched to a Canon MX512 and it was a much better experience on all points above. I'm sure there are better units to be had, but for light duty printing and scanning, it gets the job done.

[davnn]

You can't generalize all inkjet printers. I use a Canon Maxify Injket in my company (we print only ~200 pages / month) and it's amazing. There is no laserjet that could compete in price/print.

[Drdrdrq]

Sure you can. The difference is in usage pattern. If you use printer rarely, ink will dry out and you will have to clean the head (using lots of ink in process) or replace cartridge. On the other hand with the frequent usage laser printers become cheaper per page quickly. I once had Epson Stylus 800. Sucked big time. Replaced with HP 6L, never owned an inkjet again, never will.

[manyxcxi]

I don't print 200 pages a year. I might not even print 200 pages in 2 years. At my usage level I would have to buy a new freaking inkjet cartridge EVERY TIME I wanted to print because they'd be dry.

[rileymat2]

Some people like to print photos. Unless some things have changed, they are better at printing photos.

[manyxcxi]

They probably are. I wonder if you'd be better off printing the photos at Walgreens or something like that. Also, it would seem HIGHLY wasteful to use a high quality photo inkjet printer to print your Amazon return label...

[arethuza]

We have a colour Brother laser which I got a few years back which seems pretty solid - toner isn't cheap but we can probably go for years without changing it so it's not that bad.

[mikeash]

I have a Brother that works pretty well. It does track how much toner is used and requires replacement before the stuff actually runs out. However, a quick bit of screwdriver work, or some tape in the right place, and you can convince it to start over. I've done this several times since I got the printer many years back, and it still prints fine on the original toner cartridges. I'm sure someday I'll have to actually get some new ones....

[sweetbabyjesus]

" a prayer before every job " Amen to that!! Dcp7040 here going strong for 6 years on 1st full size toner. I will never look at inkjet again.

[creshal]

Lasers do have disadvantages – mainly their excessively high power consumption and their air pollution.

Modern gel inks don't dry out in my experience, and make for very efficient printers that are much less maintenance intensive than lasers. And ink is cheaper than toner unless you print several hundreds of pages a month.

[unclebucknasty]

I'm sure I'm having a brain fart and missing something obvious, but why are inkjets cheaper than laser only at lower monthly page volumes?

Seems that your savings would just continue to increase the more you print. Or is there something else that affects the inkjet price per page at higher volumes?

[jschwartzi]

It's the per-page cost. A toner cartridge will print several-thousand pages before it runs out, but most people don't print that often. The base cost on a color laser might be $300, while for an inkjet it might be $50. If you never burn through the sample cartridge that comes with the inkjet then you're ahead of laser because of amortization. However, if you manage to run out of ink more than once then laser will end up costing you less, assuming you print equal amounts with both printers.

[unclebucknasty]

Ah OK. I was thinking strictly operational costs, while this comparison includes the price of the printer and assumes other constraints. Got it. Thanks.

[pjc50]

"ink is cheaper than toner" is just not true for B&W printing.

[jhaand]

I recently bought a Brother B/W laser printer. It has duplex, linux support and wifi. Only 81 EUR.

It works great.

[robk]

100% this! Older 4700 and 5000 series color laserjets are a tremendous value used and are totally serviceable with cheap eBay parts too.

[walrus01]

Even a 4100DTN is a great deal, sub $100.

[fallinghawks]

I bought inkjets for years because I was doing a lot of photo printing, but my latest one (or I should say last one!), a Canon Pixma, was just ridiculous this way. No ink = no scanning -- whaaaaa?? I don't print much anymore, so now the cartridges dry up in the printer and/or expire, I'm not sure which, before I get any use out of them.

I picked up a Brother laser a few months ago and I don't ever have to be annoyed by that crap again.

[awqrre]

I'm very happy with my inkjet HP PSC1410 printer/scanner that I bought 9 years ago... I don't print very much and probably use one B&W cartridge per year (cheap on ebay) and the cartridge doesn't dry out..